And, no, my house had not yet sold. To view the listing, click on this link: http://www.californiamoves.com/property/details/2485412/MLS-81219028/14745-Golf-Links-Dr-Los-Gatos-Los-Gatos-Mountains-CA-95032.aspx
The group known as the Farmers, Mary's senior class community experiment group, had a mini-get together on Cape Cod. I joined them to make the 9th person on the trip. We had a great time and did a lot of biking. The cape has a number of railroad right of ways converted to biking paths.
Peter and Diana have the house on the Cape. We stayed there about 6 years ago for a larger Farmers gathering. Well, Peter let me use his old bike that looked suspiciously like a bike I bought in 1971. In fact, I think it was a twin to it. With a borrowed helmet and absolutely no riding gear other than the helmet, I took off and with the group covered over 20 miles each day.
Oh, did I mention the temps were in the 98 to 102 range. Call us nuts! And yes, there was a touch of humidity, like 90%.
The Las Vegas trip was for work. Applied Materials asked me to come back for a week to be the Master of Ceremonies of the annual Engineering and Technology conference. And it was a blast. First of all, being on stage in front of 800 people. And, second, seeing all of my old buddies from Applied. I truly enjoyed it!
Here I am on stage with Kevin James, the magician.
One night was unscheduled, so David (a former coworker) and I took in a Celine Dion show. If you ever get the chance, go see it. Wow! Oh, and it was the only time I was outside during the week, other than to and from the hotel to the airport. Yup, 115 degrees was about right!
While I managed to return to my room at a reasonable hour each night, primarily because I was on stage each morning at 8AM or so, on Thursday night after the close of the conference, the various groups of attendees made sure I did a tour of the bars and entertainment venues in the Hotel Palazzo. And we made good friends with various members of the staff.
No, I do not remember her name.
After Las Vegas, I headed to Denver to visit my grandkiddies and their Parental Units for the 4th of July. Chris and Casey are just such wonderful parents and it is so good to see Danny and Sarah grow up!
The Denver neighborhood association where they live has a wonderful 4th tradition. One of the local fire trucks comes to the elementary school and leads a parade of kids on bikes and walking adults on a five block parade through the neighborhood.
At the head of this column is a fire truck followed by several zillion kids on bikes and then the walking parents.
The parade ends at the elementary school where the fire truck hooks up to the fire hydrant and proceeds to spray the playground with cooling, fresh water. This was especially appreciated this year because the temperatures in Denver were like Cape Cod: 98 to 102 was typical.
You can see the spray of water coming in on the left side of this picture and all the kids and many parents heading for the "cool off" opportunity in the middle of the playground. What fun! Someone asked about the fire fighters not being at the Colorado wildfires. The response was, "Do you expect them to abandon Denver?" Followed by, "These guys are on call, two years ago during the parade, they turned on their lights, did a quick siren blast and then all the firefighters ran and jumped on the truck and 'poof', the neighborhood parade was over."
Danny and Sarah wore their 4th of July colors:
Sarah will be six this October. Danny will be 8 in September.
Upon returning from Denver, I had a theater performance at ACT (www.act-sf.org) on Saturday. It was the "Scottsboro Boys"--an absolutely wonderful performance telling a chilling tale of life in America in the 1930's. I have been going to ACT for almost two decades now. This is the only performance I have attended where there was a nearly unanimous standing ovation for the performance. I've seen standing O's from a third of the audience or maybe half, but never the full audience standing for a performance. If you get a chance to see it anywhere, please be sure to do so.
Oh, and it was so nice sleeping in San Francisco with the window propped open. At midnight I dug out the flannel pajamas. At 2 AM, I put the heavy comforter on the bed. After being unable to sleep in such warm weather in Boston and Denver, it was so nice to let that big Pacific Ocean cooling system provide a solid night's sleep!
I then headed to Minnesota to assist my sister in preparation for her upcoming move. The order (Sisters of St Joseph of Corondolet) in partnership with Presbyterian Homes demolished their previous "retirement center aka Bethany" and have built an open-to-the-general-public retirement village on the property. In the Twin Cities, Presbyterian Homes is very successful running retirement, progressive care and hospice facilities so its a very attractive match.
When the center, known as Corondolet Village (http://carondeletvillage.org/default.aspx) was in planning, my sister did not sign up for a place because she was doing quite well. Since then (3 years ago) she has had just enough medical difficulties to cause her to change her mind. And, a unit opened up from among the nuns' apartments so Maureen is moving in August. She originally thought it would be in November. Ah, the best laid plans. Anyway, I invited myself up to Minnesota to provide labor, encouragement and assistance in her move starting last week. We have packed her office, her kitchen, her TV accessories (Wii and other things she will not need for a while). We've delivered obsolete electronics to the recycle center, made donations to Goodwill and in general have made a lot of progress. But, there is still much to do!
Finally, as we take breaks on the moving project, we've been reading some of my sister's genealogy materials and we've made a discovery!
We have known for some time that my great grandfather spelled his name Leamy (not Lamey). Yet, when my grandfather William Maxwell was baptized, the name was spelled Lamey. In fact, his early children were named Leamy and his later kids were Lamey. Great Grampa never changed his name.
Well we've confirmed that Great Grampa's father moved from Drom, County Tipperary to Derrygarriff, KnockJames in County Claire. Unfortunately, his father was also John so I call them John the Migrator (Tipperary to Claire) and John the Immigrant (Claire to Minnesota). Well, we have learned that John the Migrator's father was Edward. And, given the dates, he was a contemporary of James the Pioneer who landed in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1798.
Is Edward Leamy related to James the Pioneer of Cape Breton? It is likely. We have also learned that in the mid-1700s, there were 15 Leamy households in County Tipperary registered in the equivalent of a census.
We also have determined my maternal grandmother was born on Calumet Island in the Ottawa River (not the St. Lawrence as we always thought). She moved to the US as a small child with her family.
Enough for now! Until next time!
Ciao
Pat
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